Democracy, latin america Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Democracy, latin america - Essay Example Lagos notes that, â€Å"†¦low levels of trust in other people constitute a defining feature of Latin American political culture† (Lagos, pg. 142). Latin Americans are characterized by a chronic passivity, where they develop the naive expectation that their problems will be solved by someone else, turning to the state, and democracy, to do so. The statistics show that as individuals move away from institutions such as political parties and government, and toward more domestic issues like television or church, levels of trust increase. These low levels, although not new, are relatively low compared to other regions of the world, and make it almost impossible for the liberalization which democracy entails. Lagos concludes: â€Å"†¦declining levels of interpersonal trust thus constitute an important barrier to†¦ the development of a civil society†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Lagos, pg. 144). Right now, the support for democracy in Latin America resides at about 62%, which masks wide differentials between countries like Brazil which have moved progressively farther to the Left. Lagos reports there has been a sharp decline in support for liberal democracy, which has been motivated almost exclusively by economic and political failures in certain countries. Although 62% of Latin Americans favor democracy, â€Å"only 37 percent of the public are satisfied with the way that democracy works† (Lagos, pg. 141). Thus, the situation in the region is that the public perception of democracy remains mixed, and the initial short-lived enthusiasm about democratic change has faded through the years. The lack of public trust in institutions and public perceptions about failures in democratic countries has fueled this ambivalence toward the form of government. In their paper â€Å"Democratization Backwards: The Problem of Third-Wave Democracies†, Richard Rose and Doh Chull Shin propose a distinction between â€Å"first-wave† and â€Å"third-wave† democracies, the